Positive study on Remdesivir out today, showing a three day reduction in the time to recover, and 3% reduction in death rate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/dr-anthony-fauci-says-dat...

Remdesivir is pricey, at $2200 a patient, but it's a start.

Check out the mask in this story: https://www.nbc4i.com/community/health/coronavirus/while-... /

My wife made me a mask from a 30ish-year-old Ohio t-shirt that was falling apart. I've had a few people ask me about it.

My wife figures this mask thing is gonna be around for a bit.

She found that several sites are selling Ohio fabric.

Works really well for a mask.

As I was browsing the data, a curious stat jumped out at me. I was checking to see if the death rate had finally stabilized, and it has been stable at 5.9% for a few days, which is very high. Oddly, not all the states have rates even close to that. The states with the lowest death percentage are:
S. Dakota 0.8%
Utah 0.9%
Wyoming 1.2%
Nebraska 1.3%
Tennessee 1.6%
Iowa 1.9%
North Dakota 2.0%
Arkansas 2.3%

At the other extreme, the states with the highest death rate:
Michigan 9.4%
Connecticut 8.5%
New York 7.9%
Louisiana 7.0%
Indiana 6.2%
New Jersey 6.1%
Oklahoma 5.9%
Minnesota 5.9%
Massachusetts 5.9%

I can't see any reason for the huge difference. It's remarkable that 9.4% of cases die in Michigan, while less than 1/10 that many die in South Dakota. I guess if you are going to catch this, be very careful where you are.

I think that it seems that all of the highest death percentages are from states with higher population densities.

I'm going to venture a guess...Higher population density usually means more industry/transportation and lower air quality. More emphysema, more pneumonia, more asthma, more pre-existing conditions, from mild to severe, all around.

Interestingly, lung related problems are not as significant of a problem. Diabetes, obesity, and hypertension are the biggest contributors to higher mortality. In any case, I find it hard to believe that the differences from one state to another are so extreme as to explain why Michigan would have a 10 times higher death rate than South Dakota or Utah.

There are other things that could be factors. One thought was that the states with high death rates may be under-testing, and only catching the most severe cases, while the states with low death rates are catching a higher percentage of cases. If so, you'd expect a higher % positive on the high death rate states, and a lower percent positive on the low death rate states, indicating that they are testing more people who may not have it, instead of only the ones they are pretty sure have it. Here are the numbers with the % positive added:
S. Dakota 0.8% 14.3%
Utah 0.9% 4.3%
Wyoming 1.2% 5.7%
Nebraska 1.3% 17.5%
Tennessee 1.6% 6.4%
Iowa 1.9% 17.0%
North Dakota 2.0% 3.5%
Arkansas 2.3% 6.4%

At the other extreme, the states with the highest death rate:
Michigan 9.4% 19.2%
Connecticut 8.5% 28.6%
New York 7.9% 32.5%
Louisiana 7.0% 16.4%
Indiana 6.2% 18.1%
New Jersey 6.1% 46.9%
Oklahoma 5.9% 5.7%

Clearly, under-testing is going on in most of the states with high death rates, and most of the states with low death rates have been running a more adequate number of tests. Still, there are exceptions. Oklahoma has a low percentage positive and a high death rate, while Nebraska has a high percentage positive with a low death rate. I suspect that Nebraska has a low death percentage with their high positive percentages because well over half of their positive tests are from workers at meat packing plants, who are presumably younger and healthier than the average population.

FWIW, Ohio is sort of in the middle on both measures, with a 5.2% death rate and a 13.3% positive percentage.
Minnesota 5.9%
Massachusetts 5.9%

US Military updates it's guidance. Those who have had Covid19 are no longer permanently barred from joining the military, so long as they were not hospitalized. Those who were hospitalized are still permanently barred. Presumably the military believes that anyone with a severe enough case to have been hospitalized will have permanent loss of function:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/05/... /

In other news, there were positive studies on HCQ from France and Spain involving patients who got it early.

Also, anticoadulant treatment is associated with decreased mortality:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jth.14817

Here is a recently released guidance for treatment of Covid patients from Eastern Virginia Medical school:
https://www.evms.edu/covid-19/medical_information_resourc...

They suggest that anti-virals should be given from days 1-11, when the case is mild, and the patient is not yet requiring hospitalization. Once the patient is hospitalized, they suggest stopping the antivirals and treatment with anti-inflammatories and immune suppressives.

Interestingly, they make a suggestion for things you can take at home, that might be helpful to make a covid case more mild, including Quercitin, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Melatonin, and Zinc. They say there is no guarantee, but it is safe and cheap.

For those that want more preventative ideas:
https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/6987
Even if the chocolate and red wine aren't protective, they are enjoyable. ;)

Neither would I, having spent a bit of time there over the past 7 years. Definitely not a commuter school.

This part of the statement I agree with. As for anything else, it is far to early to know. In a few years we can look back and see how the economies recovered in the various countries, and measure which strategy was the most successful. At the one extreme, you have countries like Australia, New Zealand, and S. Korea, which attempted to stamp it out entirely. At the other extreme you have countries like Tajikistan and Brazil which chose to completely ignore it. In between you have countries like the US that chose to try to slow, but not stop the spread. My expectation is that countries like Australia, New Zealand, and S. Korea will have the strongest recovery, and countries like Brazil will have a weaker one, burdened down by the large number of people with permanent medical disabilities.

As for Sweden, I consider it a joke when anyone mentions it, but neglects to mention other countries that adopted the same policies with completely disastrous results. Anyone that cares to bring up Sweden should start by answering several questions:
1. Why did it "work" in Sweden, but not in Brazil?
2. Why do all Scandinavian countries have amazingly low death rates, except Sweden?

Unless you can answer those two questions, Sweden is a data point not worth discussing. Sweden was able to get away with relatively minor restrictions, with a relatively moderate death rate precisely because there is something about the Scandinavian countries that starts them with a lower than normal death rate. Their death rate, while "moderate" is 4-13 times worse than Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Faroe Islands. So, if the US adopted it, would our death rate be 4-15x higher than it currently is? Would that be acceptable?

Here are the Death rates/1m population for Scandinavian countries:
Sweden 364
Denmark 94
Finland 54
Norway 43
Iceland 29
Faroe Islands 0

Denmark is a bit more European than the others. Finland and Norway are adjacent to Sweden, and are better comparisons.

A month ago you were here posting about Alex Berenson over and over. You posted about how the University of Washington model was so far off, and were predicting, based on the experts you put stock in, that there would only end up being 50,000 or so deaths.

The U Washington model predicted 90,000 deaths by August, and you and Alex Berenson were critical of it for overshooting drastically. We're at 88,000 today and it's the middle of May.

Given how wrong you were a month ago, why should anybody listen to anything you say about this? You are extraordinarily critical of the "self appointed expert class" and people who blindly believe them, and if they turn out incorrect, you seem to view it as an indictment on a broad group of people. Why are you immune from your own logic?

There are easily 3 other, quotable examples of you being blatantly wrong or sharing the expertise of somebody else who was wrong.

You posted about the now debunked Stanford antibody study as evidence that this was akin to the flu and that meant we're closing in on herd immunity. Today you're posting about how our national approach made it impossible for us to create herd immunity. You also posted that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan (and were critical of liberals who didn't immediately latch onto that how debunked theory). You said they were showing their true colors by not apologizing to Tom Cotton for stating that's where the virus originated. We now know the virus didn't originate there. Here's what you said:

"The Wuhan Virology lab was working on this virus and the horseshoe bat is not sold in the Wuhan Wet Market, and doesn't live within 700 miles of the city. I am not holding my breath waiting to hear the MSNBC gang's apology to Senator Cotton. The Left is once again showing their true colors, harder on conservatives than they are Communist China."

So not only were you wrong, but you also used that as an opportunity to attack the morality of people who were correct. True colors, indeed.

Again, why should anybody listen to anything you have to say about this? You've been wrong throughout the thread. Your main point in this thread has to be critical of others for latching onto the guidance of the wrong people, and you've just been objectively wrong over and over again.

Whether it escaped from the Wuhan Virology institute is something that will never be known. I presume you are aware that the leading "debunker", who appeared on NPR and other places, was a co-author with people from the Wuhan Virology Institute on several papers. On the one hand, that puts him in a position to know the truth, but on the other it gives him some known biases.

I presume you are also aware that the Wuhan Lab was working on "gain of function" research, in other words, what could they do to modify bat coronaviruses to be more transmissible, and that said research was funded by the US? Interestingly, the Obama Administration blocked research into "gain of function" in 2014. In 2016, the research was approved, however, and signed off on by Dr. Fauci. This is per a Newsweek article, by the way. Add to that that the US voiced concern about safety procedures at the lab in 2018.

As a final tidbit, people researching the facts found that cell phone movement, which was normally frequent around the lab, mysteriously showed no traffic whatsoever for several blocks around the Wuhan Virology institute during the period October 6-13. I haven't seen that debunked by anyone, but maybe it will be. Coincidentally, that also happens to be close to the date of the very first cases, none of which had any connection to the Wuhan wet market. The cases tied to the wet market didn't appear until about a month later.

In the end, I don't consider it debunked. I consider it an open question, with two sides both insisting they are right. I also think that "gain of function" research is an incredibly bad idea, and should never be permitted.

You say the report was debunked that claimed the virus came from the Wuhan Virology Lab. The BBC, a bastion of liberal thought didn't say it was debunked; their source said at this point there was no way to know.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52546542

Your post reminds me of a political seminar class I attended when in Grad school at our fair Alma mater. One day a student spouted off about science and the professor who was an atheist said he hated when people mentioned science in that realm, because he said they were using science to justify their views when science can be manipulated like anything else to justify one's views. Chemistry is about the only exact science and even then it can be manipulated, unless everything is done to the letter.

The Catholic Church got in trouble with the Abuse Scandal, the same with other churches and other scandals that harmed their reputation. Enron and the banks tarnished their reputation a few years later as did the Intelligence Services when they got hoodwinked by Saddam to make them think he had WMD. The scientific community is going to get hit hard after this virus is over when we realize this virus isn't any more severe than the 1957 virus and the 1968-1969 H3N2 virus which caused more death and absolutely no shutdowns. We all have a better chance of being injured in a car crash driving to Athens than of getting seriously ill with Coronavirus. The modeling has been a disaster as well as the WHO's collusion with China. Yet, you still have Bill Gates and his cronies getting upset at anyone who questions the WHO and China.

For the faithful among us, faith is the evidence of things not seen. We believe in another realm, but for those who believe science is the be all and end all, when their data runs afoul, it creates a crisis of scientific faith. I have seen this happen already in this pandemic, and I see I am not alone. The talk show host Dennis Prager the other day mentioned that he has been deluged with hate e-mail concerning his skepticism over the virus and the the subsequent lock down. Even though he has many advanced degrees and speaks five languages, he has been called a religious nut because he adheres to his Orthodox Jewish faith, and calls into question the science that has got all of these horrendous apocalyptic predictions so terribly wrong.

Professor Ferguson, one of the culprits responsible for the modelling fiasco, was caught with another man's wife when he was suppose to be meeting with the UK's task force, and yet he still has a better reputation than Governor Kemp of Georgia who was accused of participation in Human Sacrifice when he reopned the state in late April. The mainstream media said the death spike in Atlanta by mid May would be unfathomable. Well it is unfathomably low, but that's not what they probably had in mind.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/coding-... /
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-gov... /
https://freebeacon.com/media/jared-polis-brian-kemp /

Remember when the Obama Administration's overreach created the Tea Party movement in 2010? The same will happen this time around and the Left will have a meltdown when the likes of Ohio State Senator Nino Vitale becomes a rising star, as will countless others like him in the various states that have protested their lock downs. Remember when the Left laughed at Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz when they ran for statewide office the first time? In 2024 they could be your next president.

Yes, I did say I am going to cut back in posting, there are certainly more important things to do with our time in life. Yet, I see I am at 900+ posts and you have some 5,000+, so perhaps you might consider doing the same and use your time in other pursuits as well. We certainly have had some fruitful and healthy exchanges. I see nothing in my post that was demeaning or derogatory, it was a simple treatise and a recitation of facts using the aforementioned sources. It was something that typically occurs in a scholarly debate. What was that Aquinas said about someone who lashes out for no reason, perhaps their conscience is being triggered and awakened, so they suppress it by attacking the very thing that triggered it? Have a good weekend my friend!